


we can play pretend (but in the end, i love you)

by cloudburst



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: (sorta? very short but they do go thru the progression), Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Blackwatch Era, Blackwatch Genji Shimada, Blackwatch Jesse McCree, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-12
Updated: 2020-02-12
Packaged: 2021-02-28 01:09:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,369
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22675381
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cloudburst/pseuds/cloudburst
Summary: Genji knew it was an invitation to be called sweetheart like he was more than just carbon fiber and synthetic parts made to mesh with the body of a man - to be made to feel human - called darlin’ like it meant something. Have his name said like it meant something. Everything McCree had ever said to him had a purpose, at least to Genji, and that was more terrifying than any enemy operative staring at him through a scope.Genji has never known a love without conditions.
Relationships: Jesse McCree/Genji Shimada
Comments: 4
Kudos: 76





	we can play pretend (but in the end, i love you)

**Author's Note:**

> hello! i'm pretty excited abt this. been reading some books where there's no quotes around dialogue givin it a dreamlike quality. wanted to try that here
> 
> also, no graphic depictions of violence but a few mentions of blood and bullets but nothing 2 bad

He thinks back to the first time they’d met - a ringing in his ears, metal making him as inhuman as he’d always been. Now, there were parts to prove it, moving but dead all the same. They were muted unlike his rage, unlike the fire in his lungs as he learned again to breathe and to speak. His voice was robotic beneath the visor, and his eyes burned with tears he was sure would never fall. 

He had been enraged as a voice with no trace of malice mocked him - calling him sweet names that no man made of metal could ever contain. Genji was not multitudes; he was not anyone’s darling. He was a thing made of carbon fiber and held together by nothing - not even glue. No man of metal deserved to be called. Didn’t deserve. And so it was mocking in a voice like honey that he could not place - and so it was his own beginning and ending as he told the man in the annoying hat to leave him be. It was not Genji’s fault that the man did not listen, not as it was his fault his brother’s own hands had run red with his blood. He told himself this as an explanation but the synthetic skin beneath his armor ached as he did - the lie burning like a wildfire into his throat. The scream would not come out, and his own brother had killed him and all he had once hoped to be. 

The enmity that blossomed between Genji and the man he would learn was called McCree seemed inevitable - natural as the blooming in sakura season, as true as the rain falling from dark clouds in the sky. It stemmed from a place of darkness in Genji’s chest where the flame did not reach and the embers could not burn. He screamed in the darkness and it was all-consuming. If a Shimada yells into the night and no one is around to hear, Jesse McCree can hear it through the walls. 

The angel was named Angela - a fitting name for eyes so blue that they could see right through him. He could see the regret in her eyes each time she looked at him, and he recognized that a life for a life had held true. She saved his life and was unable to live her own without understanding her creation of an abomination. She had made him, and now she must live with it. He did not hate her - knew she had just been doing her job at taking his acceptance and desire to live and transforming it to a desire to find himself beneath the earth. He needed no burial, as he was already dead in ways he could not count. 

The training sessions pushed his body to hell and back. He became more and less than he had ever been - in moments where his shuriken would break a training bot he was alive, coming closer to his own humanity than he had been in the months since his body had been taken from him. His breath came hard, and heavy. No one could touch him. 

The red paint hit his armor. The chest plate was stained with his failure, and the barrel of McCree’s training pistol had never seemed so daunting. The man offered his hand, once, when Genji was slammed back by the force of six-powered paint shots to the chest. It wasn’t his fault he wasn’t expecting it - except that it was, and there could be no vengeance after the inclusion of six real bullets. Genji had refused with only his eyes, as this was all McCree could see and all the angel had allowed him to give away. He had begun to call her Angela, and she had been calling him Genji all along. It stung as he stood without support. He no longer had a name that he was deserving of. 

His heart was hammering between his ribs - in his throat - the heart of a man. McCree shook his head at him and for once didn’t say a word. Words between them had been missing lately; there was no attempt to draw him in with sweet nothings that would mean the world to a man who had space to accept, or to the man Genji had once been. The Talon operatives were paces away, and for once McCree was silent. Genji wanted to crawl out of his synthetic skin. He had never been one to follow urges- a lie - never been one to listen. His dragon came from within for the first time in months, and he could hear McCree’s low voice as he killed. He was red, no training pistol in sight. Peacekeeper got off the final blow that night. The man behind Genji fell as though he had never been alive. It was easy to forget that he had. 

He learned that McCree heard his nightmares. Hanzo slashed and McCree knocked on his door. He said, if he could keep it down that’d be great. Genji knew it was an invitation to be called sweetheart like he was more than just carbon fiber and synthetic parts made to mesh with the body of a man - to be made to feel human - called darlin’ like it meant something. Have his name said like it meant something. Everything McCree had ever said to him had a purpose, at least to Genji, and that was more terrifying than any enemy operative staring at him through a scope. He was being nice, and Genji refused it time and time again. He was unable to quiet his dreams, and he suspected McCree knew this. He did not knock again. 

The second-in-command of Overwatch called him to her. She asked how he was doing, and he answered honestly. Something about her compelled him to and he realized that it was always something making him reveal pieces he had never wished to uncover. He told her, poorly. He told her how he screamed because of what they had forced upon him - how he had wanted to live, but not wanted this. She told him, it’s always something. 

He came to love her in the time they were stationed in the same place. To be looked upon as a human is your right, she said to him. He may have believed her - as the tone of her voice made no room for denial. 

McCree looked at him from across the room. His chest was in flames, and the wildfire burned through once more. 

The Talon operative mentioned Hanzo Shimada. They had made contact, and yet they were unsure if he would be receptive. The name struck fear into Genji’s heart. McCree looked at him, concern showing in more than his eyes - his expression, the way he hesitantly reached out to place his palm light atop Genji’s shoulder. It was the first time he had let him. He sat next to McCree on the plane back; there were ten dead Talon operatives in a warehouse, and Genji leaned into him. 

The pain was excruciating. His body was rejecting the newest modification and there was nothing the angel could do other than give him the newest medication that would aid him in the pursuit of becoming less human. He was Angela’s work - McCree called her Angie, an unfitting name for the woman who had crafted a body from steel - but he was Dr. O’Deorain’s pleasure. 

Genji. There was no accompanying knock. The door to his quarters opened and he knew it was McCree. The point in his arm housing deadly weapons was inflamed. Yet, now that McCree had entered he seemed unsure of what to do - Genji writhing, the only touches previously shared between them the press of palm to shoulder, leaning in when things got bad, and once the press of Genji’s visor into McCree’s neck - his breathing heavier than the beating of McCree’s heart. He asked, Can I hold you, Genji?

Genji couldn’t be sure, but he had willed himself to nod. He did - and McCree’s arms wrapped around his shoulders as he lifted Genji from where he was attached to the mattress. He was scooped up like it was nothing, and perhaps for McCree it was. The man had always been one to try and touch, not without permission - not without eyes burning red, cybernetic, locked onto his as the name Hanzo echoed in his skull. Genji was held, and for a moment it was enough. He did not thank McCree but once again pushed his visor against McCree’s neck, a wordless response to the distraction from becoming a thing he had never wished to be. 

Eventually, McCree had laid him down. Genji was not asleep, but he was as close as he had been since Moira’s implants had gone in - since Angela had tried to lie to him and say, It will stop hurting soon. His own name left McCree’s lips, like a prayer. Genji wanted to feel them. 

McCree never knocked, but he did come in. They shared a meal of junk food and sodas as McCree stole glances to the side, Genji’s faceplate removed in the presence of another. It was insignificant, Genji told himself. McCree had seen stars - saying, You’re lookin’ mighty cute for me, darlin’. 

Genji scoffed, voice less robotic - more human he’d tell himself - not underneath a mask. You have said, McCree. 

He said it again. 

It was so red. 

They had been sent on a simple infiltration mission - but with Blackwatch, missions meant to be simple often escalated until things were anything but. The high-level Talon operative they were meant to steal data from had never arrived; it was as if they had been set up, but couldn’t imagine the possibility. Genji and McCree were sent with Dr. O’Deorain. They would make it back. 

The bullet that lodged itself in Genji’s flesh came as a shock to his system. It was hard to deny he was alive when he could feel the blood seeping from his exposed shoulder. He somehow stopped himself from wishing for another to follow. It would resolve nothing. He would then be lifeless and hollow, adding one more attribute to his negative current condition. That was a shift in thought and he had many things to blame and one of them here with him, screaming his name as the searing pain spread. 

Genji. McCree was yelling as the second came. Maybe his left arm would be out of commission after this too. Maybe they’d match. He couldn’t believe he’d allow himself to be hit not once, but twice. McCree stepped in front of the last bullet - the sound of it hitting his armor sweeter than any Genji had ever heard. He was scared - eyes burning red with the light of cybernetics as McCree’s eye shone till six men were dead. Genji could feel nothing as Dr. O’Deorain stopped the bleeding. 

He could feel nothing. He wanted to. He would not tell of the reminder he was alive and all the forms it could come in. McCree would worry, or McCree would give in to his wishes, and he wasn’t sure which was worse. 

He felt nothing.

Asking why he had done it seemed the logical next step, when he was strong enough to move without wincing at the sharp pain in his arm - body made of cybernetics, heart and mind feeble as any other man’s. He wanted to know why McCree would have risked his life against a better shot, why he was willing to do that for someone like Genji. Why would you? His voice cracked. It’s reckless. 

Don’t be askin’ questions you sure as hell don’t want the answer to, pumpkin. McCree’s voice was honey, sugar, and it was destroying him. 

Genji yelled, voice cracking at the end as he asked, Why?

McCree’s next words crashed over him like the ocean waves he was sure he’d no longer be able to feel - would drown in the swell like he was, then - would drown, drown, drown. His last puff of air would be heady with the smell of cigarillo smoke and sweat, McCree pulling him in with movements and words that should have remained unspoken. They hung in the air between them like a noose - like a noose with a machete ready to strike clean through the rope with Genji’s exhale, with his reluctant acceptance. 

Because I’m in love with ya, Genji. 

Genji spoke, breath a puff, words broken. That’s not true. You can’t love something inhuman, and it would be selfish of me to wish. 

McCree stepped closer. His arms were at his sides and Genji could tell that McCree wanted to touch him but was afraid of his broken body, the one he had seen weeping red. The man beneath the carbon fiber can bleed after all. 

What do ya wish for, Genji? Because I want you to be breathin’, is all. 

I want everything but desire nothing. There can be no honor in taking something you cannot mean. Genji stepped away as he spoke once more, I want you to touch me. His actions an antithesis to his words.

McCree closed the door to his quarters; Genji had stepped in long ago when he came to confront him. The hands that had wrapped around Genji’s torso to distract him from pain - to be selfless and selfish, McCree wanted to hold him - found their way to the armor at his back as Genji leaned into him, head against his chest. The faceplate was discarded and Genji looked up, eventually. He knew that accepting would be the death of him - or at least some part of him. He did it anyways. 

Their lips touched, Genji using the leverage of McCree’s arms as he moved to his toes. It was sweet and bitter all at once, the slide of McCree’s lips along the synthetic lower lip offered to him. He breathed through his nose. No man made of metal should feel as hot as Genji did - wildfire burning up his spine. 

Genji spoke, softly, robotically. He hated it, but he believed McCree. He had to. 

I believe you. 

I know ya do, darlin’. 

Their lips met again.

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for readin! if you wanna talk about mcgenji some more, hmu on @cygenji on twitter! also, let me know what ya think :)


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